Especially severe rip currents have resulted in more than 50 rescues at Horseneck Beach so far this year, on pace to easily exceed last year’s total.

By Grant Welker

Especially severe rip currents have resulted in more than 50 rescues at Horseneck Beach so far this year, on pace to easily exceed last year’s total.

A severe Patriots Day storm altered the sea floor near the beach so much that the resulting sandbars and quick drops have created a recipe for dangerous currents, said lifeguard supervisor Chris Boyle.

“It changes the way the water recedes from the beach,” Boyle said. “There have been a number of very bad rips that are pretty much stationary, and we have to keep people away from the area.”

None of the rescues have been serious enough to require a hospital visit, he said.
By Tuesday, lifeguards had performed 51 rescues. In 2006, there were 66. There were 16 in 2005, when attendance was down, and 44 in 2004. Rescues are counted from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

South-facing beaches like Horseneck can have more severe rip currents because of swells from wind, Boyle said.

The number of rescues often corresponds with the year’s attendance level. In May through June this year, there were 304,000 visitors. In the same months in 2006, there were 276,000.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, rip currents typically form at breaks in sandbars and near structures like jetties and piers. They account for 80 percent of rescues at surf beaches.

Because the currents are strong channels of water flowing away from the beach, it is better to swim parallel to the shore to get out of the current instead of fighting the flow, the NOAA says. A person caught in the current can also float or tread water.

Rip currents can be very narrow or as wide as 50 yards, and can pull swimmers hundreds of yards offshore. They are identified by a difference in water color, a break in a wave pattern, or a channel of choppy water, the NOAA says.

Although there are often dozens of rescues a year, it has been nine years since the last drowning with lifeguards on duty at Horseneck Beach. In July 1998, when lifeguards made about 40 rescues over the span of a few days, a New Bedford teenager drowned in rough waves.

Prior to 1998, the last two drownings at the beach were in 1995, when a 40-year-old man was believed to have had a heart attack, and in 1967. In 2003, a 13-year-old girl drowned after being carried away by a current at nearby Cherry and Webb Beach.